Thursday, April 17, 2008

HH) What do you think the 2004 Platform meant, if not the following? “A child should only be removed from his or her home by a local court empowered with the consent of the community.” (HH

The 2004 platform said: "Only local courts should be empowered to remove a child from his or her home, with the consent of the community. This is not meant to preclude appropriate action when a child is in immediate physical danger." The "with the consent" phrase could modify the empowering (as you suggest), or it could modify the more proximate "remove". The subsequent sentence reinforces the latter reading more than the former, but is also ambiguous. We may just have to agree to disagree whether this language meets the clarity standards that the Platform should have.

HH) Now I see why you had so little feedback and why one writer had to send 14 messages! (HH

Yes, I can see how psychic prediction of detailed responses to feedback -- and agreement with one third of it -- would deter most people from attempting even their first submission of such feedback. :-) You might not want to invoke comparisons with that other fellow, as many of his messages involved streams of all-caps expletives and invective that effectively deterred all attempts to reply.

HH) 1) Torture 2) Due process for taking children from their homes 3) Nuclear weapons as illegal WMD; and as a waste of money (or way to hire lobbyists). All three issues are current news. (HH

I already agreed on torture. The nuclear weapons spending you cited is 0.3% of the federal budget, and doesn't seem to be part of an arms race. I don't see anything in the 2004 platform about nuclear weapons being illegal, so that problem applies to both texts. I wouldn't agree that the recent incident in Texas is a reason to amend the Committee's recommended language on parental rights.

BH) On areas where we disagree, feel free to press your case with other Committee members, and to prepare floor amendments for Denver if your concerns aren't addressed. (BH

HH) It is so nice to have your permission. (HH

If you read my encouragement as a grant of permission, that explains a lot about our present and past disagreements about how to read the 2004 platform.